Mount Everest 2001 WHITE LIMBO Expedition Alpine -Style Climbing on the World's Highest Mountain

 An Expedition to the North Face of Everest (8850m)

INTRODUCTION:

White Limbo is one of the great routes on Everest: it is long - 2800m (10,000ft), it is technical - requiring Canadian Waterfall ice 4+ and rock climbing to YDS 5.9, it has objective danger requiring speed and great judgment to climb through and all at extreme altitude!

How do you truly climb Everest in pure alpine-style? Alpine-style really means that you carry everything on your back from the base of the route to the top, climbing in one push. If you climb in the Himalaya every year you know that some of the recent claims of purity are bogus, and that the only way to climb alpine-style is to pre-acclimatize. Our expedition will climb Cho Oyu first. This means that when we arrive at Everest we will be ready to go, in one push. 

This type of climbing requires experience, a lot of it. You have to have sound judgment as well as technique. The weather must be right and you must be in the right state of mind. Only preparation on Cho Oyu will allow us to take advantage of the annual good weather window at the last week on May and first week of June. 

Our team will have the benefit of spending a few weeks with friends on Cho Oyu, making this leg of the expedition more enjoyable. Keeping focus for over two months without help of friends is nearly impossible. So we have recruited a few climbers to help this happen. They are experienced and competent, but more importantly they are good people that will make this first part of the expedition pass quickly, successfully and enjoyably.

We will then move directly to Everest' s Rongbuk Base Camp. It is an easy two day jeep ride that will give us the chance to take our mind's off climbing for a few days as we travel through Tibet. All of the world's most recognized climbers understand the notion of mental preparation. These two days give us the chance to focus and breathe, to regain the drive that is required to climb such a great route. Once at base camp the team will split, two members plus Sherpa support-climbers heading to the North-east Ridge and two climbers heading to the base of the North Face, where WHITE LIMBO begins. 

The North-east Ridge gives great views (I know this from our respective expeditions to Everest in 1999) into the Great Couloir, which WHITE LIMBO follows for it's entirety. Our only means of communication will be hand held radios, our plan is for both teams to meet at 8600m, where the routes converge and carry onto the summit together. The North-east ridge team will use supplemental bottled oxygen to ensure great photographs and quality digital footage. The WHITE LIMBO team will not use bottled oxygen.

We hope that you follow our progress on the various websites listed below and wish us the best of luck.

Thanks for your support

Leader: Fabrizio Zangrilli